Ep59: We Cannot Leave Meaning to Machines – Human Skills in the Age of AI with Kate O’Neill
Recommended Episodes
In a world racing toward automation, what does it truly mean to be human at work?
In this powerful and timely episode of Human Wise, Helen Wada sits down with tech humanist, author, and TEDx speaker Kate O’Neill to explore the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and human meaning. As organizations invest heavily in AI and automation, Kate challenges us to pause and ask a deeper question: what human outcomes are we protecting as we scale technology?
Drawing on insights from her latest book What Matters Next and her TEDx talk We Cannot Leave Meaning to Machines, Kate shares why contextual awareness, emotional intelligence, and good judgment are becoming even more critical in an AI-driven world. Together, Helen and Kate explore the tension leaders feel between speed and reflection, efficiency and ethics, automation and authenticity.
This conversation is not about resisting technology. It is about leading it wisely. It is about ensuring that meaning, purpose, and human connection remain firmly in the driver’s seat.
Topics Discussed:
What it means to be a “tech humanist”
Why AI is forcing us to redefine human value at work
The human skills that cannot be automated
Why investment in people is lagging behind investment in technology
The Now–Next Continuum and disciplined reflection
Using AI as a thinking partner rather than a replacement
Meaning as the core human skill
Purpose, values, and the power of meaningful questions
Unhiding at work and bringing your whole self into professional spaces
Why AI’s “averaging effect” makes human quirkiness more valuable than ever
Timestamps:
00:00 – 02:00 | Introduction: Meet Kate O’Neill and the concept of tech humanism
02:01 – 05:30 | AI anxiety and redefining what it means to be human at work
05:31 – 09:30 | Why human skills still matter in automated environments
09:31 – 12:00 | The gap between technology investment and people investment
12:01 – 14:30 | Asking better questions and stepping back from the problem
14:31 – 17:30 | Reflection, decision-making and the “now-next continuum”
17:31 – 20:30 | Using AI as a tool for reflection and thinking
20:31 – 23:30 | Meaning, purpose and human skills in leadership
23:31 – 27:00 | Showing up authentically and “unhiding” at work
27:01 – 30:00 | Human creativity vs AI-generated sameness
30:01 – 32:30 | Leadership, values and decision-making in an AI world
32:31 – 34:00 | Final reflections and Kate’s leadership question
About Kate O’Niell
Kate O’Neill is a globally recognised tech humanist, author, and speaker focused on helping organisations navigate the intersection of humanity and technology. She is the author of six books, including her latest, What Matters Next, which explores how leaders can make better decisions in an increasingly complex, AI-driven world.
With a background spanning digital transformation, data strategy, and user experience, Kate has advised leading global organisations on how to implement technology in ways that enhance, rather than diminish, human value. Her work centres on ensuring that innovation is guided by purpose, ethics, and long-term impact.
Through her writing, speaking, and advisory work, Kate challenges leaders to think beyond efficiency and focus on meaning, relevance, and human-centred outcomes in the decisions they make.
-
Ep59: We Cannot Leave Meaning to Machines – Human Skills in the Age of AI with Kate O’Neill
[00:00:00]
[00:00:29] Meet Kate O'Neill
[00:00:29]
[00:00:29] Helen Wada: Welcome to another episode of Human Wise. I'm absolutely delighted to have Kate O'Neill. Join me today, author of six books, the latest being What Matters Next. Kate and I met at Thinkers 50 are, there we go.
[00:00:45] Helen Wada: There we go. We've got it there. Love the color cake. Love the
[00:00:48] Kate O'Neill: Thank you. Yeah, yeah,
[00:00:50] Helen Wada: the color. It's all about the color. I'm all about the pink. It's all about the
[00:00:54] Kate O'Neill: yeah.
[00:00:54] Helen Wada: Kate and I met last year at Thinkers 50. It was the first time that I went to the conference, but actually a, a [00:01:00] fantastic Room of thinkers and I think Kate is one of the best and recognized
[00:01:05] Helen Wada: by Thinkers 50 last year.
[00:01:07] Helen Wada: So congratulations on
[00:01:08] Kate O'Neill: Thank you.
[00:01:09] Helen Wada: You describe yourself as a tech humanist, which I was really intrigued about. I'm all about the human at work, but actually you bring that tech angle too. And so I'm really curious to understand a little bit more, talk to the listeners about, you know, the technology that's going on in the world right now, and how can we blend that technology with being human and, and what does that look like for the future of work and, and what that so delighted to have you on the show.
[00:01:33] Kate O'Neill: Thank you. Yeah, I'm delighted to be here. Helen, I know it was a delight to meet you at Thinkers 50, or adjacent to Thinkers 50 initially. I think it was a a breakfast that was organized for us, and that was fun to, to get to meet in that context. But congratulations on the recent lunch of your book as well. And I love that our
[00:01:51] Kate O'Neill: books have, you know, aligned themes. That's a, that's a fun thing.
[00:01:55] Tech Humanism and AI Anxiety
[00:01:57] Kate O'Neill: I think for me. The, the. Discussion [00:02:00] around human at work is a really interesting one because I mean, first of all you can't help but be human at work. And I think that's been a cost and a challenge for people in some cases, right?
[00:02:11] Kate O'Neill: Like showing up as your whole human in context where professional like quote unquote professional environments demand of us that we be a lesser than our whole human self. But at the same time, we've got more and more. Automation and more and more agentic AI kind of working alongside us. And and I think for some people, you know, very making everybody really nervous about what is that gonna mean for their own jobs. But I think it, what it also does is it forces us into a definition of what it means to be human at work that is necessarily in contrast to what it means to be machine at work. Like what it means to be AI at work, right? And so
[00:02:50] Kate O'Neill: how do we show up? In in the year of Beyonce 2026 to a work environment as whole humans [00:03:00] when work is being so frequently defined and constructed by automation and by ai, and I think that's the really interesting challenge in front of us.
[00:03:09] Helen Wada: And, and I think it's, is the question on everybody's
[00:03:12] Helen Wada: minds right now.
[00:03:13] Supply Chain Needs Human Skills
[00:03:13] Helen Wada: I was, I was on a webinar just a couple of days ago where we were talking about AI and supply chain. You know, and what's that going to do for our jobs and people, as you say, worried about what it's going to do, but ultimately it came down to a conversation about the human skills were needed to complement the agents that are gonna be in place, the technology that is gonna be brought in, that is being used right now to say we need people that not only can interact with this technology.
[00:03:46] Helen Wada: But actually the skills that we need as human beings almost need to accelerate and amplify because, and particularly at the lower ends, and I welcome your view, but at the lower ends of the. [00:04:00] Population coming into the workforce because some of the skills that you need as human beings, so there's the strategic judgment, the curiosity, the, the collaboration that you would get further on in your career.
[00:04:13] Helen Wada: We're actually needing those vi at the lower levels because that's what you need to be able to interact with the tech and create the right questions that the technology can help to solve.
[00:04:23] Kate O'Neill: Yeah, I think AI and supply chain, as you said, is a really great example of this because what it does is it creates. The opportunity to say AI and automation and all the technology, all the data-driven technology can help us, you know, facilitate much more streamlined supply chain. It can help us really maximize what's flowing through the supply chain and, and where like understand where there are limitations and understand where we need to really focus. And at the same time, you know, vendor relationships that happen at every place along that supply chain are human to human relationships. Like there, there are going to be increasing [00:05:00] amounts of. You know, automation that takes place through the interactions and the transactions, and we're going to be increasingly seeing Ag agentic, AI facilitate a lot of those interactions and transactions.
[00:05:11] Kate O'Neill: But when it comes right down to it, when contracts are being negotiated and when people have to figure out. Which vendor they prefer and who they trust. And when there's conflict and you know someone needs to resolve it, those are human skills. And we still very much need people who have human skills, who have, you know, the ability to be empathetic and contextually aware and emotionally intelligent and, you know, use good judgment and communicate well.
[00:05:38] Kate O'Neill: Like all of those things are incredibly important, even alongside. Really, really sophisticated systems that are going to take us a lot farther and solve a lot of problems at scale for us.
[00:05:53] Helen Wada: Right. You know, I, I couldn't really agree more with, with the human wise and being, being human and the mnemonic human being [00:06:00] at the center of the book that I've just read. You know, it, it's that how you show up. We all talk about it. How do you show up? Who are you? I think we all have to think about how do we redefine, redefine, the value that we bring and our value has to shift and who we are potentially has to shift
[00:06:18] Helen Wada: because the dynamic within which we're working isn't.
[00:06:21] Helen Wada: Then we can get into the curiosity, the connection, the empathetic, the, the negotiation. You know, negotiation is, as you said, is a human to human skill.
[00:06:30] Why People Investment Lags
[00:06:30] Helen Wada: But let me ask you this, because I work with a number of organizations as do uk, and in terms of investment pots, where organizations are investing in technology.
[00:06:44] Helen Wada: And they're investing in AI and all of that. You know, there's a lot of money, a lot of dollars going into that. I still see comparatively lower amounts of investment going into developing the people and the human [00:07:00] skills that are needed and, and, that actually. Worries me, you know, because we can put all the tech in.
[00:07:07] Helen Wada: Goodness, I've been in business 30 years. Whether it's,
[00:07:10] Helen Wada: you know, offshoring or it's using data or all those kind of things. It's another technology ultimately. But if we don't have the people skills, if we don't do the change management right, then actually we are not making the most of what's on offer.
[00:07:26] Kate O'Neill: Yeah, I think, you know, I, I've seen a number of fluctuations in the attention to this issue and the budget being allocated for this issue. And at the moment I do feel like the attention being given and the budgets being allocated are sort of at the lowest I've seen for a while, even though sort of, feedback from. Folks like myself from analyst firms, you know, from everybody who's kind of studying the space are increasingly saying, you need to do more. You need to do more. You need to invest more. This is where we need to be [00:08:00] focused right now. But I think, I think it's a. It's an understandable piece of cognitive dissonance for leaders that they're looking at how much capability they get from AI tools, from generative AI tools, and increasingly from agentic AI tools. And they're looking at the capability that that's adding to their organizations. And it looks like cost cutting. It looks like we can trim back some of the people from our organization and we can save money by deploying these systems, you know, company-wide. Only to find that just rolling out systems doesn't bring you cost cutting, right?
[00:08:38] Kate O'Neill: Like just rolling out the systems doesn't save your organization and doesn't solve any problems. You have to have an interrelationship between. Human judgment and the human skills and that investment in the technology. And there's just no way around that. I mean, maybe, maybe someday, you know, 10 years from now, companies [00:09:00] will be at a place where they can roll out tech systems like AI systems and be able to immediately glean the benefit of that.
[00:09:09] Kate O'Neill: And I don't think that's necessarily a good thing for humanity. I just think that it's. Possible that that is where we may end up. But at the moment, again, in the year of Beyonce 2026, right? We are not at that point, we're at a point where. When you roll out a let's say it's a, a new procurement system and it has like a chat-based interaction and, and you're thinking, we're gonna save so much money because we're not gonna need so many procurement analysts and agents and all of the people who are kind of like lower in that system.
[00:09:39] Kate O'Neill: We're only gonna need a few people kinda supervising it. We're gonna need it, implementing it, and then that's gonna really save us a ton of money, except that it actually turns out that there's a lot of. Institutional knowledge bound up around a lot of that management and around the, the handling of those orders and what [00:10:00] flows through the organization.
[00:10:01] Kate O'Neill: There's a lot of culture, there's a lot of just know-how that, that cannot be immediately cashed in on by these systems. It has to be cultivated and it has to be finessed and that doesn't happen quickly. So I think, you know, leaders are. Kidding themselves, and it's, it's not their fault on some level because I think the media headlines are making it sound as if. They're missing a trick if they're not rolling these systems out and gaining all sorts of advantage from it. So it's a, it's a real unfortunate situation where I feel like leaders are really hamstrung. This is very much the same scenario, like when I did write what matters next, I felt. the the tension that leaders found themselves in feeling hamstrung by the complexity and the acceleration of the technology and needing to make decisions in, in accordance with that, yet feeling like the complexity was making it really [00:11:00] hard to know what the consequences were going to be.
[00:11:02] Kate O'Neill: You know, sort of second and third order consequences of their decisions. And I think it's just gotten harder and weirder and, you know, more complex for people so. Those are the, the kind of the realities of the context, and it's, it's a, again, totally understandable situation, why individuals feel anxious about their job security, why leaders feel anxious about not being able to get enough sort of returns on their investment immediately, and not being able to show enough benefit from these huge investments that they make in AI systems and why. Board directors feel anxious about not seeing the results that they feel like they're pushing for. I mean, everybody across every part of the system is upset that they're not getting the results that they wanna get out of this. So I think, you know, it takes stepping back and seeing the systems for what they are and seeing what the benefits are for what they are, and then approaching it very realistically and coming [00:12:00] at it from a very human centered approach. Bringing that to it first.
[00:12:06] Step Back and Ask Better Questions
[00:12:06] Helen Wada: And I think, you know, you talk about the system, I talk a lot about systems and the
[00:12:10] Helen Wada: coaching work that I do. You know, there's sort of systemic thinking in terms of, I was working with a group the other day and actually just mapping the situation out, taking a. Step back to go what is the problem that we are trying to solve?
[00:12:25] Helen Wada: Using the fact that AI is coming in, it gives us an opportunity
[00:12:32] Kate O'Neill: A hundred percent.
[00:12:33] Helen Wada: holistically rather than just kind of incremental change that we might move forward. AI is giving us that opportunity to take a step back and say, where do we want to be? What do we want to be doing differently and how can we do it?
[00:12:49] Helen Wada: But to do that. You need the human skills, you need that mindset of a pausing. And I know you talk about that in your [00:13:00] book about, you know, sometimes we are racing to do the next thing. And I talk about it in human wise. Sometimes you are missing what's right in front of you because you don't pause,
[00:13:11] Helen Wada: you don't ask the right questions.
[00:13:14] Helen Wada: And I think there's this race to do something. Rather than saying, what is the problem we're trying to solve? What are the right questions we need to be asking ourselves to understand what's going on. And how can we bring our people with us and then use them to work out what the, the technology does behind?
[00:13:38] Helen Wada: Because
[00:13:39] Helen Wada: my fear is you just put the technology in, and I've seen it years and years ago, and all the consulting engagements I could see is the, the people element is left behind. And not only that, the human skills that we need to work with, the agents to work with our customers to negotiate better. We need to be investing in those people because it's not just [00:14:00] a leadership skill for me, it's a commercial skill, and that's the essence of human wise, that these skills are no longer just leadership skills.
[00:14:07] Helen Wada: They are critical commercial skills that we need alongside the technology that we work with in business.
[00:14:16] Kate O'Neill: Yeah. Yeah. I think the, the problem I think with a lot of the discussion though is that. Even talking about pausing, for example, that that is not a natural behavior in a fast-paced environment. So where I think the natural behavior is one that, that feels pressured and that feels the urgency and feels like I just have to make the decision today.
[00:14:42] Kate O'Neill: I just have to make quick decisions. I just have to react.
[00:14:45] Now Next Continuum Reflection
[00:14:45] Kate O'Neill: At the same time, you know, one of the things that I talk about and what matters next is I introduce this model called the now Next continuum. And it's just really just a timeline. Looking at the past, the present, and the future. Understanding that we have when we look toward the [00:15:00] past and the decisions we've already made in the past that are shaping the context of the present and the the circumstances we now find ourselves in, we have the benefit of hindsight when we look toward the future and we try to understand what do we understand about the direction that things are heading into in the future.
[00:15:18] Kate O'Neill: We can sometimes glean the benefit of foresight and then we harness for the present. The insight that we have about our surroundings, about our context, and so on. But it does take. A moment. It does take a kind of a discipline of reflection in order to use those skills and use the, the thinking process around them. That's not necessarily the same as pausing per se. I don't, I don't think that in the moment that you're, you know, faced with a very urgent decision. Pausing necessarily buys you anything. You are hopefully in a place where you've built a discipline of reflection, insight, gathering, [00:16:00] foresight, building, and then you're able to make urgent decisions rapidly and in reaction to, you know, real, real time events that are happening.
[00:16:09] Kate O'Neill: But you can only do that by building that discipline. And it's an iterative discipline. It's one that I think leaders ought to be carving out time for themselves on whatever. Cadence is right for them, whether it's weekly or monthly, quarterly, whatever. But to sit with, you know, what they have learned from what has happened in their organizations, what has gone well, what has not gone well, you know, what they most want to see happen over the next year or three years, whatever the timeframe is. And then really kind of using that reflection. As real time ethical acceleration, as I call it. It's not, it's not the, it's not the sense that we can ever slow down. I don't think that most leaders feel that they can slow down. It's the sense that we need to bring ethical decision making into that accelerated environment and have it [00:17:00] inform the decisions that we're making.
[00:17:04] Helen Wada: Reflection piece is, is critical, but it's hard. Right. It's hard. I was talking with a group this morning, Lee. We were running a, a sales coaching program and we were talking about the importance of reflection. You know, I give them a, a book that I say, this is not for notes for your daily to day work. This is for you.
[00:17:22] Helen Wada: This is for you to reflect on conversations and meetings, and you are building muscles of reflection. But it's not easy. So when. You are working with leaders, how can we, there'll be people here that go, yeah, I get it. I know I need to do this, but I struggle. I struggle because I'm too busy. I'm trying to, what are some of the tips from your, what you've seen about building these reflection processes?
[00:17:49] Using AI to Reflect
[00:17:49] Kate O'Neill: I, I think there's a couple of things. One is this is a great opportunity to bring AI back into the discussion in a meaningful human-centric way, right? Like if, if an AI tool like [00:18:00] Claude is one where you feel very conversant and that's, that's kind of your happy place right now which a lot of people are feeling then, then that is absolutely a, a. A perfectly sound place to begin your process of saying, you know, use your, make your prompt be something like, I want to spend a, a few minutes reflecting on some of the learnings I've had in the last few weeks here at work. It looked like some of the decisions we made were a little too rash and some of the things didn't yield the ROI we were looking for. So ask me some questions to provoke the reflection that I need to have and, and try to help me steer toward insights and foresight that will then help me make better decisions in a more time sensitive way. If you structure a query like that, and feel free to take the one I just said and tweak it to your own heart's content. If you spend some time doing that. I guarantee you that even just a few minutes of that reflection will start you down the path of being able [00:19:00] to say like, aha. That was something that I learned from the last few weeks. I, I didn't recognize it as such, but that's true. You know, it's, it's the little things that I feel like. One of the things I joke about is, you know, you don't hire a consultant to come in and tell you something. Earth shatteringly new. You bring in a consultant to tell you something you already knew, and it makes you feel really smart that you already knew it. Right? And so it's a similar kind of process.
[00:19:26] Kate O'Neill: You're, you are engaging with your own knowledge, you're just having the tool kind of reflect it to you. And then once you see it. You might be able to recognize it better. So that might be an up to the minute way for people to feel like they're, they're learning their prompting, they're learning their AI usage better, and they're doing this reflection and it's kind of all benefiting us, making better decisions.
[00:19:53] Helen Wada: And I think you, you bring a, a good point in there about how can. We be using ai. I mean, I think [00:20:00] most people now, and this has even shifted in the last three to six months, have, have had a play with whether it's Claw or chat, bt, or whatever the, you know, to play with it.
[00:20:11] Helen Wada: But that. Certainly is where I've started in terms of help using it as a bit of a thinking partner.
[00:20:19] Helen Wada: Now, I, I will actually say I, I still believe that there's something quite powerful about handwriting. My handwriting is awful, by the way. I mean, my, my kids say to me, mum, you should have been a doctor. Because literally it's, it's raw that there is something about. Putting pen to paper
[00:20:35] Helen Wada: in terms of committing things and helping it uncover things.
[00:20:40] Helen Wada: But, but I also agree that with the tech and the ai, it's a great thinking partner to help stimulate where you might have gone to you, you get you to a place you
[00:20:51] Helen Wada: you wouldn't have gone to otherwise. And rather than having an assistant there or waiting for somebody to have that conversation with, you're like, okay.[00:21:00]
[00:21:00] Helen Wada: Kate's not available. I need to have a think about this now. Where can I get to and
[00:21:06] Helen Wada: using it to help ask you questions I think is a really great way to start,
[00:21:11] Kate O'Neill: Yeah, I think this is my answer there is really just about meeting people where they are right now, because I,
[00:21:18] Kate O'Neill: I am very much a notebook hound. I love my notebooks. They're all back here and I love pens and I, you know, I love that offline writing. But I also have migrated a lot more to online note taking and you know, my company basically runs on notion.
[00:21:34] Kate O'Neill: We do everything in notion and notion's. Ai assistant powers a lot of the capacity of my company. So I totally understand that that's a very natural place for me. To do a lot of this kind of reflection these days. If I start thinking about where do I wanna capture this, this week's, you know, kind of reflection session, it might be on a notebook 'cause I might be feeling that way, but it [00:22:00] might be in notion or it might be over my phone in, in a dictation app or something like that. And into Otter, let's say. And then capture that audio and then transcript and use that to say like, let's extract what the insights were. I think it doesn't matter how you get there, it matters that you do the work and that you're able to glean some kind of insight, some kind of recognition of wisdom to tie
[00:22:25] Kate O'Neill: back around right, to human wise and, and that that wisdom is helping you make. More timeless decisions like in a, even at a moment when things feel so timely and so urgent, the, the reality is that the decisions we need to be making most will hold up over time. That 10 years, 20 years from now, as you reflect back on the decisions you made, you want to be feeling like that is timeless.
[00:22:55] Kate O'Neill: I would still make that same decision today, right?
[00:22:58] Kate O'Neill: The specifics may [00:23:00] change,
[00:23:00] Kate O'Neill: but the wisdom that you harness in making that decision should feel timeless, and that is only going to happen if you're tapping into that continuity of what you have known, what you do know, and what you hope to know as time goes on, which really requires this reflection.
[00:23:20] Helen Wada: And these are human skills, right?
[00:23:22] Helen Wada: So we talked again about ai, but, but these are human skills that we need to learn, that we need to. Practice, not necessarily take a step back, but we need to build up our muscles of that, the empathy, the curiosity that. Collaboration, how do we connect with people to start to think about things in different ways?
[00:23:46] Meaning as a Human Skill
[00:23:46] Helen Wada: And, and I'm curious from, from your perspective, you know, leading with the tech, but very much the, the humanist there, what are those critical skills, those human skills in the age of AI that we really should be if we are doubling [00:24:00] down on what would be the top three from your perspective?
[00:24:04] Kate O'Neill: Yeah, I mentioned a few earlier the contextual awareness, emotional intelligence. You know, sort of good judgment. These are, these are very important skills and I think the one that really sums it all up is the one I talk about in my recent TEDx talk which is called We Cannot Leave Meaning Up to Machines. And so I kind of give it away right there in the title, right? Like meaning is in my mind, the core human. Skill. The core human condition. The core human, you know, fundamental trait, right? It's something that we make meaning as a result of being. Beings and bodies and being in the world and using our senses to understand what's happening around us, and then uniquely our way of processing our experiences through language and then kind of synthesizing all of that.
[00:24:57] Kate O'Neill: It's this really fascinating, [00:25:00] endlessly fascinating way that we have these. Different sort of cognitive systems that bring us an awareness not only of what's happening around us, but what it means, what it, why it matters, right? And so when we then take that and try to understand how we can apply what matters. No coincidence that that's in the title of my book, right? What matters at this level of, what are we communicating with one another that's, you know, semantics and communication. Like, what's meaningful communication look like? Or what are we elevating? So what are, what are the relevant priorities? What is significant in the organization and how we're focused on our values, or even at the most. Macro, kind of big picture, cosmic existential, what's it all about and why are we here? Big questions of humanity. I think those. Trace really nicely to an understanding of, of purpose and why we even are where we are [00:26:00] or why we do what we do. And those have so much to do with how we show up at work. So it brings us really full circle into this understanding of how to be a whole person at work so fully requires an understanding of what we deem to be meaningful, what we each individually deem to be. The most meaningful thing, and sometimes it's about accomplishment. Sometimes it's about contribution. Sometimes it's about connectedness with other people getting a chance to serve other people or, or just communicate with other people on a regular basis. It's, it could be any of those things. But it helps determine how and why you show up in the way you show up in your work and in your organization.
[00:26:42] Kate O'Neill: So I think that skill of really being self-aware enough to harness that and use it well and bring it into all of your interactions with other people and with other systems that you interact with is gonna be key for the next several years to making this transition into [00:27:00] this human and a AI environment in a very human-centric way.
[00:27:05] Purpose and Meaningful Questions
[00:27:05] Helen Wada: And it's it's as if you've read the first chapter of the book, Kate, and you've just repeated it and human wise, because my H of the human is how you show up. And that's exactly, you know, tapping into that part of what I talk about in how you show up and the reason that the H is how you show up.
[00:27:24] Helen Wada: Because I believe that until we are self-aware about ourselves and what's important to us as individuals, going back to meaning, values, purpose, then we. We struggle to understand where others are coming from because we haven't done the work on ourselves in the first instance. And you talk about meaning, you talk about purpose, and, and I talk about that in, in this first chapter, how you show up and if you rewind the clock, you know, a number of years ago there was a big campaign around purpose and how we link what we do on a daily basis to our, you [00:28:00] know, big purpose.
[00:28:01] Helen Wada: And, and in a way it's the right thing to do.
[00:28:04] Helen Wada: But I also think that. Practically, people often struggle with that, you know, because I want it to be a more human working world. Okay, well, but actually, what can I be doing on a daily basis? You know, I believe in welfare for everybody, but actually I need to put food on the table for my family, and that's the reality.
[00:28:25] Helen Wada: And so I talk about, yes, there's meaning, yes, your values, but. Break your purpose down into different elements. I think sometimes we get caught up in the, you know, we have to execute on our purpose every day in our, in our daily lives and our work. And I, I don't think we necessarily do. I think for me. We, and taking a step back, but reflecting on our different parts of our lives and maybe your role in your career right now doesn't serve your overall.
[00:28:55] Helen Wada: I'm very fortunate setting up the human advantage. I can work towards building a [00:29:00] more human working world with exactly the work that I do, but that's taken me 25 or 30 years to get there and, and it's a brilliant. For a lot of people it's like, do you know what, actually they can be separate and, and maybe my career does this and it provides for me financially and enables me to do something I'm interested in and I'm learning, but actually maybe I do some voluntary work on the side or I, I can fulfill those bigger purposes, my bigger purpose with doing something different.
[00:29:25] Helen Wada: And I think sometimes we get caught up in that everything has to be in one hold, but actually.
[00:29:29] Kate O'Neill: Sure, sure. But even, even in the work that you. Are doing because it's your job, right? Because you have to provide for yourself and, and earn a paycheck, even if that's the case. And you, you aren't providing for your, your greater sense of life purpose in that job, in that particular moment. I think one of the things that that is a missed opportunity that, you know, people can take away from this and harness in their own work is that there's. The, the sense of a, a meaningful question. That is one thing [00:30:00] that I talk about in, in what matters Next, the opportunity to ask yourself a meaningful question that is the derivative of your purpose your life's purpose or your work purpose. And, and it can be the question that you are asking yourself. At various levels in various ways, and it kind of connects to maybe other questions, but like one, for example, is in my work, a question that I often ask myself is, how can we help humanity prepare for what, by all indications, looks as if it's going to be an increasingly tech and data-driven future, right?
[00:30:33] Kate O'Neill: Like so if we know, if we all agree, and it seems like we all do agree that the future is going to be increasingly tech driven. Then how do we make sure that humans are ready for that? And so all I have to do kind of every day, every time I'm prioritizing my work, every time I'm trying to figure out like which of the things that I have in front of me I should really spend the most time and effort on. It's really about which one best serves [00:31:00] that question best answers that question because that's a direct interpretation in question form of something that feels deeply connected to purpose for me. And so I feel like that's something that people can pretty easily do in almost any. Type of work environment is what would make you feel the most, like you're contributing to something that means something to you, even if you know you're just there to get a paycheck.
[00:31:23] Kate O'Neill: But you, what you really enjoy about it is the fact that you get to be part of. Making people's days, like let's say you're working at a coffee shop as a barista, and you know, you see every once in a while the people's faces light up. When they get a chance to interact with somebody who's warm and smiling and wishes them a good day and things like that, that's fine.
[00:31:44] Kate O'Neill: Like if you're just asking yourself like, how can I show up in a way that makes people feel the warmth that I want them to feel? That is a meaningful question. If it's meaningful to you. I think that's the, the operative chance here is for people to really [00:32:00] understand what they can make meaningful about how they show up, and how they can bring that intention to the work that they're doing.
[00:32:08] Unhiding at Work
[00:32:08] Helen Wada: And we are talking a lot about what's important to you, the meaning, the purpose, that authenticity of who you are. I. You know, again, we, we saw it in the
[00:32:20] Helen Wada: pandemic. We, we almost lifted the mask on a lot of who people were. At home and and their reality. But there are some people that still feel that I can't be really who I am at work, and if I show really what I'm thinking or feeling, then maybe that's going to hinder my career, my promotion prospects and things.
[00:32:42] Helen Wada: That's still a challenge. I mean. Beyonce 2026. But that's
[00:32:46] Helen Wada: still a challenge that I hear in the workplace. The the friction that we get and people's like, I wanna buy you like this, but I feel stifled by the management and the leaders that I'm working with right now.
[00:32:57] Kate O'Neill: Yeah, my friend Ruth Rothblatt [00:33:00] has a book called unh, and this is her. Her work is around this concept of unhinging, and I think it's a really brilliant way to frame the opportunity to ask ourselves, what is it that we're hiding in order to kind of out of fear, in order to feel as if we're, you know. Averaging ourselves into an environment so that we'll fit in better. And, and could we take a risk of unid? What it is that, that we've been hiding? Can we show up more fully? Can we be more honest about, you know, maybe a, a mental condition or, you know, an emotional health issue or something like that, or, or a physical issue, or, you know, many.
[00:33:42] Kate O'Neill: I think there's a really interesting moment going on. And this may be just my age speaking, but I, I'm witnessing this. It feels like a generational transformation around the way women are talking about perimenopause and menopause worldwide. And, and I think this is a really fascinating [00:34:00] transformation out of something that was so shame filled and so secretive for so, so long. And there's these kind of celebrity backers, you know, the Oprahs and the, and the folks like that who are getting behind the message of. We need more research, we need more medication, we need more, you know, medical interventions and understanding of what it actually means for women to go through this life stage. And let's take off the ridiculous notion that women are done when this happens. Like women are just entering their prime intellectually and emotionally. Like there's so much that can happen after that. So. I think that's a, for me, a really vivid example of something that we have been, we're lucky to be able to witness the transformation around and how it's providing this opportunity for people to start maybe showing up a little more honestly in their in their lives, in their communities, and potentially even in their workspaces.
[00:34:59] Kate O'Neill: And that's something [00:35:00] that I, I think we'll get to witness over the, over the years to come.
[00:35:03] Helen Wada: I, I love that. I love that concept of un hiding. And, you know, in a similar vein, there's a, a brilliant coach I use. To work with called Nancy Glynn. And she was one of the sort of founding yeah, the stimulus for me, for writing human wise. And I quail in the book. And she shared with me a, an image that I still use.
[00:35:20] Helen Wada: It's in the book about a window with curtains and the, the, the window and the curtains is to represent how much of yourself do you show.
[00:35:28] Kate O'Neill: Mm-hmm.
[00:35:29] Helen Wada: And, you know, he is likened to that sort of hiding piece. And I was talking again this morning in a group. Coaching programs like the more you that you show,
[00:35:39] Kate O'Neill: Specific.
[00:35:39] Helen Wada: the more that others are likely to let in.
[00:35:42] Helen Wada: And if we are looking for deep human connection in whatever we are doing at work alongside the,
[00:35:49] Helen Wada: the AI and the technology, but actually what can you do as an individual? You can start to show a little bit more about who you are
[00:35:57] Helen Wada: and therefore others come in. I mean, I had [00:36:00] early stage breast cancer. I've mentioned it a couple of times on the podcast, but, but you know.
[00:36:04] Helen Wada: Occasionally comes up. I don't shout about it, but sometimes it just, you know, when people ask about the journey and I share and then all of a sudden you get people, you know, they recognize it. I've found out others have had similar issues and it, like they say, the perimenopause, I mean it's, I'm right in there.
[00:36:21] Helen Wada: Okay.
[00:36:22] Helen Wada: I'm, you know,
[00:36:23] Kate O'Neill: Hello sister.
[00:36:25] Helen Wada: God, I think, I think at some point I'm gonna be doing a, a podcast, a show on, on what it means to be midlife, menopause, and, and human, because it's, it's really real. But, But, you give a great example that the more of us we show, the more we can. Others in, and we can truly understand where they're coming from, what's important to them.
[00:36:46] Helen Wada: It goes back to what business challenges are we solving and going back all the way around full circle, how are we gonna solve the most complex business opportunities and challenges in the future? [00:37:00] It's
[00:37:00] Helen Wada: about connecting different minds together.
[00:37:03] Quirkiness vs AI Averaging
[00:37:03] Kate O'Neill: I will just make one more pitch for my TEDx talk because I talk exactly about this in the talk about the fact that the way that generative AI is built. It steers toward the most likely next set of words. And that means that what is most probable is going to be your output. And in a world where probability is steering us toward these kind of flattened, averaged answers to everything, that's not very unique.
[00:37:34] Kate O'Neill: It's not very creative, it's not very human. And the, I think the great thing about humans is that we are very quirky. We all have, you know, very different life experiences. We all have very different perceptions about what is funny, what is interesting, what is relevant. And if we show up with that quirkiness and that creativity and that, you know, difference [00:38:00] amongst ourselves, we stand to create a much more dynamic environment. Even as we use AI tools, we can absolutely use AI tools facilitated in a way that moves us more quickly forward, helps us deal with the accelerating world we live in, and yet we have to stay very firmly in the driver's seat. And make sure that we're bringing our full attention and full human presence to how we use those tools and how we show up with each other so that we can show up in ways that are unexpected and quirky and full of life and dynamism.
[00:38:37] Helen Wada: Love it, Kate. And I think that's a great place to, to press pause. Goodness, we could be talking all, all afternoon on this.
[00:38:45] Kate O'Neill: Absolutely.
[00:38:45] Top Tip and Closing
[00:38:45] Helen Wada: But before I let you go, I always ask the
[00:38:48] Helen Wada: guests a couple of things. Firstly, a top tip. Based all your wisdom, your experience, what's your top tip as leaders, listeners think about using ai, keeping the human at [00:39:00] work? What's your top tip? And going back to the questions, what's a question for people to reflect on?
[00:39:05] Helen Wada: This isn't asking Claude. What's your question for listeners to reflect on?
[00:39:11] Kate O'Neill: I think maybe the tip is before you choose a tool. Spend a little time thinking about what human outcome you are trying to build around or trying to protect. Let's say, what human outcome are you protecting with the tool that you are investing in? And if you can't say it out loud, you're not ready to scale it. So that's, that's the tip in the question. Let's say maybe it's a compatible question. Where in your work are you treating a technology decision? Like it's an efficiency decision when it maybe is actually a values decision?
[00:39:51] Helen Wada: lots to ponder.
[00:39:53] Helen Wada: You got my brain thinking now.
[00:39:55] Helen Wada: Um. It's, it's been brilliant to have you on the show. You've talked about the TEDx, [00:40:00] you talked about the book. Where can people find you, Kate, if they want to learn more.
[00:40:03] Kate O'Neill: My company website is kko insights.com, and it has links to all of the aforementioned resources.
[00:40:11] Helen Wada: Fantastic. Brilliant. It's been wonderful to see you again.
[00:40:16] Helen Wada: Hope to see you in London again later on in the year.
[00:40:19] Helen Wada: And
[00:40:19] Helen Wada: yeah, I will see you, see you again soon. But thank you for
[00:40:22] Helen Wada: joining me on the show. It's been great to have.
[00:40:24] Kate O'Neill: Thank. you, Helen.
[00:40:26]